DOE Lists Hydrogen Hubs, Investments in Power Grid and EV Charging as Top 2023 Energy Transition Moves

Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Perhaps the three most important needs in the energy transition are: funding, funding, and funding. Of course research, infrastructure, manufacturing and consumer buy-in are all important too, but none of them happen without trillions of dollars in funding.

So as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its yearend summary of progress on December 21, each item on the list revolves around funding. And, as the COP28 leadership released its own ending summary a week earlier, it also zeroed in on funding, its shortfalls, and its needs for the future of the energy transition.

The DOE sees its biggest funding success as the "Launching of America's First Clean Hydrogen Hubs," announced in October. Therein the DOE will be releasing $7 billion, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), to launch seven regional clean hydrogen hubs aimed at accelerating "the commercial-scale deployment of low-cost, clean hydrogen."

Second on its list was support for the power grid. There, the DOE sent out the most money in history, more than $8 billion. The Grid Resilience Innovation Partnership (GRIP) got $3.5 billion to "modernize and strengthen the grid," the Transmission Facilitation Program received $1.3 billion, toward adding 3.5 gigawatts (GW) of grid capacity and creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs, and it gave various governing entities $750,000 to boost grid resilience. The announcement said $37 million more went toward hydropower.

It listed help for energy resiliency in U.S. possession, Puerto Rico as third, after which came the rise in electric vehicle (EV) power stations, through funding from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. In December, New York and Ohio became the first states to open EV charging stations based on that program's funding.

Striving to reduce costs to consumers through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (EECBG) was another high moment, in the DOE's view. With goals of reducing fossil fuel emissions and boosting energy efficiency, 2,700 entities, including states, local governments, territories, and tribes, received $550 million in 2023, said the DOE.

Further down the list was the launch of the Office of Critical and Emerging Technology (CET), "to ensure U.S. investments in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, quantum computing, and semiconductors..." With existing resources such as the Lawrence Livermore National Lab and others, the DOE says it saw significant advances in climate modeling, the use of AI in climate modeling research, and others.

IIR Energy's Geoffrey S. Lakings points out that this and other DOE funding shows that the West, particularly the U.S., is leading the transition funding charge--a lead that may be subject to change, with the U.S., along with about half the planet, going into elections in 2024. Will those voters decide to keep pushing forward, or will concerns about costs and reliability of green energy give them pause? Industrial Info will dive further into this topic in the near future.

Stocktake in Dubai
Announcing that the COP28 conference was "the beginning of the end" of the fossil fuel era, the official statement also noted the instituting of "the world's first 'global stocktake' to ratchet up climate action before the end of the decade--with the overarching aim to keep the global temperature limit of 1.5 degrees Centigrade within reach." That would require reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030, a tall order indeed.

Funding Part II, Dropping into the Bucket
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was among the financial initiatives getting top billing at COP28, listing six countries that had pledged new funding. Total pledges have reached US$12.8 billion, with 31 countries anteing up.

Many leaders have called for the world's top economies to contribute more to the emerging world, to close the funding gap. COP28 saw eight donor governments pledging new funds to the Least Developed Countries Fund as well as the Special Climate Change Fund, which reached US$174 million. Another US188 million is pledged to the Adaptation Fund.

The bad news is that trillions of dollars are still needed to make the 43% greenhouse gas reduction goal by anywhere near 2030. According to the COP28 review, "In order to deliver such funding, the global stocktake underscores the importance of reforming the multilateral financial architecture and accelerating the ongoing establishment of new and innovative sources of finance."

Making the energy transition affordable--even possible--for developing countries and even the less-advantaged in industrialized nations will be perhaps the biggest challenge of all.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).